


The Most Astounding Secret

by Inori



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Cute, Gen, Rare Pairings, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inori/pseuds/Inori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Speirs had long been a legend, a rather scary one. Stories about him were always astounding and even horrifying, however, when they were in the snowy forest of Ardennes, Easy Company found out the most astounding secret about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lieutenant Speirs had long been a legend, a rather scary one. Stories about him were always astounding and even horrifying, however, when they were in the snowy forest of Ardennes, Easy Company found out the most astounding secret about him.

That day Easy Company went back to their old position overlooking Foy, ordered to hold a line there. The German artillery started firing at them before they finished fortifying the covers. Lots of soldiers died or wounded; desperate calls for medic could be heard everywhere. However, most of them knew there wouldn’t be any medical care before the barrage ended. Under such intensive barrage, it was almost impossible for a medic to reach the point on time.  
Then Lipton saw their doc Roe, brave and bold as usual, running foxhole after foxhole to answer the calls. He looked calm and serious as he always was, giving treatments and comforting words to every wounded man. When the explosions were close, he would change his position and use his body as a shield to make sure the wounded wouldn’t get a second hurt.   
“Serge, I need help!”  
He helped Roe to move the wounded onto Jeep, patted his shoulder in support. “Be careful, doc. Don’t get hit.”  
“Thanks serge, I will.”  
Roe nodded but slightly moved his shoulder away. After so many fights together, Roe still didn’t get used to touches like that. Lipton recalled that back in Toccoa he had hardly seen doc Roe attending any of their parties or movie nights. Their doc was not in close relationship with any of them, but he cared about them more than anyone else. Lipton watched him running back to the battlefield again, and made a decision: when they moved off line, he would suggest doc to go out with the boys. Single young men like them should have fun together, and made some friends.

Later that day, when the second barrage stopped, he saw doc Roe again. Their fearless medic was being bandaged by his colleague Spina. Heffron and Luz were sitting around drinking coffee, when they saw Lipton, Luz offered him coffee and shared with him the story.   
“You know what, Lip? Our fearless doc Roe, who never got hit in all the battles we’ve had, cut his finger opening a food can! ”  
Spina finished his job and pointed at Roe’s hand, there was still blood on the bandage, “I don’t even know how the cut can be so deep. Are you trying to use the tin-opener as scissors?”  
Heffron jumped to his feet and run away, still laughing loudly, “I’m gonna tell this to everyone, bye, Gene!”  
Doc Roe sighed helplessly, “I guess I can’t stop him, right?”  
Luz smirked and spoke in General Taylor’s voice, “No you can’t. In an hour or so everybody will know about your glory wound.” 

The truth is that, rumors spread as fast as light. Half an hour later, Winters and Nixon came in a hurry to ask him about Roe, the version they heard became that doc Roe was seriously wounded by a shrapnel.   
“It was just a cut on the hand, by a tin-opener.” Lipton sighed and reported, “Spina had bandaged him, it’s fine now.”  
Winters smiled in relief. Nixon raised his eyebrows and said, “See? I told you never believe rumors like that. I bet an hour later they will say that our medic is KIA.”  
Then they saw someone they didn’t expect to see here.  
“First sergeant Lipton.” An icy voice rang behind him, he almost jump to his feet and pulled out his pistol. Here came Lieutenant Speirs of D Company. He saluted to Nixon and Winters, then glanced at Lipton with his icy cold eyes. All those horrifying rumors about Speirs echoed in Lipton’s head, and never in any second did they sound as close to truth as now.  
“Lieutenant Speirs, sir?” After a short pause, he saluted and answered.  
“Where is Roe?” Speirs asked in such a cold voice that silenced everyone around. Speirs repeated his question impatiently. For a second Lipton felt that he would be shot by that famous Thompson if he didn’t answer this question on time.   
Lipton looked around and pointed at the direction of second platoon.  
“I believe he is with the second platoon over there-”  
Before he finished, Speirs had already walked away. The rest of them three looked at each other in confuse and worry, then followed Speirs to where the second platoon was gathering.  
“Why is he here? Shouldn’t he be with the D Company holding a line back in the woods?” Asked Nixon with his eyes wild open, “And since when did he know Roe so well?”

Roe was sharing coffee with the second platoon in the woods. After all those fight he finally started joining their conversation circle rather than just sitting afar. Heffron put his arm around Roe’s shoulder and joked about the cut on his hand. Everyone around was talking and laughing warmly, even their serious doc smiled a little with his fellow soldiers. 

Speirs pushed through the crowd, with icy expression on his face as if he was going to shoot anyone in his way. The others sprat apart silently to let him walk straightly towards doc Roe, wondering in fear why on earth he was here and what the cold-blooded Lieutenant would do.  
To everyone’s surprise, he embraced doc Roe tight – too tight to be an embrace of friendship. And doc Roe, who obviously didn’t like close touch at all, caressed Speirs’ hair and whispered to his ears in soft and comforting voice.  
“I’m fine, Ron, take it easy.”  
“You’d better be.” Murmured Speirs, taking a close look at his bandaged hand, “Is it still bleeding? Show me the cut and I’ll check it myself.”  
Roe smiled and patted his neck in a loving way, “Don’t loose the bandage, OK? We are in real short.”  
“Take mine. I’ll call you if I get hit.”  
“Joke on that issue again, I promise I’ll never come to you at any time.”

The lovers were whispering in low voice to each other, and the others were too shocked to make any reaction. Lipton made a deep breath to let himself calm down from what he’d seen, then he smiled in a slightly amused way.   
Well, now he knew why doc Roe had hardly joined the boys in party nights, and where had he been during all those weekend passes. Their medic was surprisingly good at hiding secrets; he should have been an intelligence officer.  
And, it seemed that they had uncovered a secret about Speirs, which was far more astounding than any of those rumors and stories they had heard before. Now it became a real threat that Lieutenant Speirs of D Company – later the new CO of Easy – would shoot them all for exposing his secret.

Still couldn’t quite believe what he had seen and heard, Nixon turned around and asked Winters, “That’s real big news. Since when did they get together?”  
Actually that was the very question everybody wanted to ask right now.  
Winters looked equally confused and astounded, “You are the intelligent officer, you tell me.”  
Nixon shrugged his shoulders and smiled, “Well, at least we know why Speirs never came to our card game.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Eugene Roe first came to Toccoa camp in Georgia, the first commanding officer he met wasn’t anyone in Easy. It was Lieutenant Ronald Speirs, of Dog company.

2  
When Eugene Roe first came to Toccoa camp in Georgia, the first commanding officer he met wasn’t anyone in Easy. It was Lieutenant Ronald Speirs, of Dog company.

It rained heavily that day; and Roe’s train was late for about 7 hour. Therefore when he arrived it was almost midnight. The welcome office was already closed, he didn’t know to whom he should report, so he went to the nearest camp, asking the first officer he saw for help.  
“Sorry to bother you, sir. Do you know where I can find Easy company?”  
The lieutenant raised his eyes on him and said, “They are on a march, should be back in half an hour or so.” He pointed out at the next camp and continued, “Easy’s camp is right here, third one the left. You can wait there for captain Sobel, the commanding officer of Easy.”   
“Thank you, sir.” Roe saluted to him, and then asked, “What’s wrong with your arm?”  
Under the gloomy light Roe could still see there was a bloodstain on his sleeve. Clearly his forearm was injured, and still bleeding.   
“You mean this one? Nothing serious.” The lieutenant answered carelessly without even looking at his arm. Roe frowned for his carelessness, and offered, “Would you mind if I see it?”  
The lieutenant glared at him for a while, and then rolled up his sleeve to show him the wound. There was a long and thin cut on his forearm, perhaps caused by bayonet or something as sharp. The cut was not very deep but treated poorly. Roe searched in his backpack and found some bandage and iodine. Carefully he cleaned the cut and bandaged it.  
The lieutenant studied him for a while, and asked in curiosity, “You are not an army doctor. So, medical student?”  
“No sir. I just got some basic training from my grandma.” After finishing bandaging he answered and suggested, “You’d better see a doctor tomorrow, sir, to prevent infection.”  
The lieutenant didn’t take his suggestion seriously, instead he asked, “What’s your name?”  
“Roe, sir. Eugene Roe.”  
“Ronald Speirs, Dog Company.” The lieutenant shook his hand with a warm but rather strange smile, “Glad to have you here, doc Roe.”

Years later, when recalled his days in Toccoa with his fellow soldiers, Roe didn’t consider it that intolerant. Of course their commanding officer Sobel was tough and mean. Their training plan was the strictest of the entire regiment; and scarcely did they have any weekend pass. As one of the very few who volunteered for a medic he had many courses to catch up. So Roe spent most of his holidays in the reading room, burying himself in the brick-thick medical books. Therefore, the cancelation of weekend passes hadn’t riled him as much as the others.   
Sergeant Lipton was worried about his isolation and suggested several times that he should go out with other boys. However, what Lipton hadn’t noticed was that, for most of the time, Roe wasn’t alone. 

It was Friday night, most of the soldiers in Toccoa were out to the city for fun, including those in Easy company who were supposed to stay in the camp. Even though their tyrant captain found another stupid excuse to cancel their weekend passes, most of them didn’t bother obeying it at all. In fact, the entire second battalion was happy to help with their “escape plan”. This week, as George Luz had announced after lunch, lieutenant Speirs of Dog company offered to help.   
Roe raised his eyes on hearing this, but didn’t say anything.

Lieutenant Ronald Speirs was somehow a mystery to most of the men. He wasn’t close to his soldiers, and was very strict in training. Most soldiers feared him more than any other officers in Toccoa. However, unlike Sobel, he wasn’t mean or unreasonable. He seldom refused small favors like this as long as it wouldn’t affect their training plan. So, for most of the time, he was not that difficult to get along with – at least that was how Roe thought of him.

It was 8pm now; the reading room was quiet and empty as usual. For most soldiers the night just began. However, minutes later there were footsteps approaching. Roe stopped reading and waited, was a little surprised Speirs would be back so early.   
“Thought you would be here.” Speirs dragged a chair and sat next to him. Roe moved a little to make some space, and replied, “Good evening sir. I thought you were out to the city.”  
“I agreed to help them get out of the camp, not to join them.” Speirs frowned in a slightly bothered look, “Besides, I don’t want to drive a car of drunks back.”  
Roe smiled a little at the image of his fellow soldiers singing and drinking in Speirs’ shiny car. When Speirs cast a warning glance at him, he coughed to hide his smile.  
“Anyway, thanks for helping us, sir. After such a long week, we really need a break.”  
Speirs nodded, and suddenly he asked: “Do you have a first aid kit?”  
There again.   
Roe sighed helplessly. He closed his book and pulled out the first aid kit, didn’t even bother to ask.  
“Show me the wound.”  
Speirs stretched out his left leg and rolled up the trousers. There were a line of small cuts on it, as if he had walked onto a wire fence. Roe checked the cuts and asked, “Where did you get this?”  
“In yesterday’s training, on a fence.” Replied Speirs, “One of my men fell down; I had to pull him up.”  
Almost every week, Speirs would come to him and ask for medical care. Usually those were just small cuts like this, not serious enough to call the army doctor, but would be troublesome if left untreated. Thanks to his frequent injuries Roe was far more familiar in dealing with those small wounds than he had been 3 months before, he was sure he would get satisfying scores in the training course.   
“Thanks to you, sir, I think I will easily pass the training course.” After bandaging the cut, joked Roe.  
Speirs smirked and replied, “You are welcome.”  
Then Roe reopened his book and continued studying. Speirs started writing his training report or something else, just like he had been doing in every weekend for recent 3 months. At first Roe felt a little uncomfortable being companied like this, but due to rank difference he didn’t say anything in objection. As time went by Roe realized that despite the obvious difference between them, they had many in common. For instance, both of them didn’t like drinking or parties, and both of them were very serious to their jobs. So it became pleasant and relaxing for him, and it remained unnoticed to anybody else. Roe had an instinct that it would scare his fellows in Easy once they found out who he had spent all those weekends with – in fact it did surprised them dramatically, later in the frozen woods of Ardennes.

At around 10pm Roe finished reading. He packed his belongings and stood up. Speirs followed him out. The entire camp was still quiet with a few soldiers patrolling, Speirs stopped in front of Easy’s camp, searched his pocket, pulled out a chocolate bar and handed to Roe. It was interesting a tough guy like Speirs always brought some sweets with him. Every week Speirs would give chocolate to Roe and insist he needed more. “Medic needs strong arms to drag your men out of danger” were his words. Roe had the illusion that he was putting on weights under such a strenuous training.  
“You have to stop forcing me eating chocolates, sir. I’m afraid I will be too heavy to be qualified as medic.” Roe took the chocolate bar and complained.  
Speirs rolled his eyes in disagreement. “Fine. Then keep on starving yourself, you’ll be light enough as radioman.”  
“Just take it and get some rest. We’ll have a new training plan next Monday; it’s going to be hard.”   
Speirs patted his shoulder and said; his finger unintentionally touched Roe’s neck. He shivered a little for the warmth on his neck.  
He had been ignoring the elephant in room for 3 months, now, with that hand still on his shoulder, he think he could no longer pretend he didn’t feel a thing.   
“Sir, why are you always here?” He asked, calling up all his courage.  
At first there was confusion in Speirs’ eyes, indicating that he thought Roe was joking with him. When he figured out that Roe was serious, confusion turned into anger.  
“What do you mean?” He frowned and asked in an irrigated low voice.  
Roe knew that he’d better stop now, apologize and pretend he was just joking. If he stopped Speirs would ignore this accident as if nothing had happened. However, something deep inside was urging him to ask. He had been longing for the man for weeks, not as friend but someone closer. It became harder and harder to accept his kindness without asking for more.  
“I heard from someone in Dog company that you never ate chocolate, why do you always bring it with you?”  
Speirs stared at him expressionlessly; no words came out of his mouth. Roe observed carefully, his heart sank as the silence continued. Finally, with disappointment, he accepted it as a rejection.   
All of a sudden, Speirs cursed in low voice and stepped forward. He dragged Roe in to a strong hug, whispering to his ears in a desperate tone, “Hell. I’m dating with you, doc. Don’t tell me you haven’t realized it at all for the God-damn 3 months.”  
Roe was completely shocked by this confession and the strong arms around him. Before he could say a word, his lips were captured by a hot kiss. Both of them made a sigh of relief as their lips met, and then, passion and affection overwhelmed everything else.  
After seemingly a lifetime he was finally released from the kiss, blushing and grasping. Speirs caressed his hair and smirked evilly. “Well, I consider it as an acceptation.”  
Roe threw him an angry glare. After his brain was refunctioned, he thought of something very essential.  
“Are you intentionally making all those wounds?”  
“Otherwise, what do you think?” Speirs raised his eyebrows and asked, as if it was too obvious to be mentioned, “Do I look like an awkward rookie that gets hurt every day?”  
For a second Roe had to fight hard against the temptation of punching an officer right on his face. 

“Speirs is a good officer, one of the best we’ve ever had. But I still want to punch him on the face every now and then. It’s too dangerous, so I resigned as the first sergeant.”  
That was Telbert’s answer to the question why he resigned as the first sergeant. Doc Roe nodded in agreement on hearing this.   
He couldn’t agree more, especially the part about punching Speirs on the face.


	3. Chapter 3

3  
Doc Roe was angry at something, or more possibly, he was angry at somebody.  
Lieutenant Ronald Speirs, aka the meanest and toughest guy of the second battalion, after studying the serious face of doc Roe for a while, reached the conclusion above.

It was D-Day plus 6; they had just taken the town of Carentan, and started moving out to the swamp field. In the afternoon they encountered an unknown number of German on their left fling. Now the entire second battalion was in the trench, waiting for attack scheduled at 0530 tomorrow.   
Speirs was on a patrol through the trenches when he heard someone yelling for medic. He walked towards where the yelling came from to have a look. It turned out to be some nervous trooper who had mistaken his sergeant as a Kraut and attacked him. Fortunately sergeant Talbert wasn’t seriously injured. It took less than one minute for doc Roe to bandage him. Speirs stood aside and waited. They had no chance to talk since the jump, and he missed his boyfriend dearly. Roe put everything into his bag and stood up, Speirs blinked at him and stepped forward, to his surprise, Roe walked away without even casting a glance at him, as if Speirs was just some stranger rather than his boyfriend. Slightly angered by his indifference, Speirs caught up with him and grabbed his arm, asking in low voice, “Spare me a minute, doc?”  
Unwillingly stopped by him, Roe turned around and glared at him. There was anger burning in his dark eyes as he spoke.  
“If you need medical treatment, medic of Dog company is right there, sir.”  
The words were so cold and indifferent that it froze him to speechlessness. Now it was clear that doc Roe was angry at nobody else but him. Speirs recalled all the things he had done in recent days, yet still couldn’t he find anything that would irritate Roe to that extend. Usually Roe was gentle and easygoing and hardly ever lose his temper. However, as someone in Easy once stated, they got enough courage to impeach their CO at the risk of being lined in a wall and shot, while nobody dared to annoy their dear doc.  
Obviously there was no such word as fear in Speirs’ dictionary. He simply ignored the furious glare and stepped forward to close the gap between them. He rounded Roe with his arms, stared straightly inside his eyes. Roe cast a dangerous glare at his arms, as if he was going to try some embolia on them.  
“What happened?” He asked with a threatening smile, “Answer the question or I’ll take further action.”  
“You are the one who jumped out of the trench and run into MGs fire alone, you tell me what happened.” Roe swung off his arm and roared at him in low but furious voice, “It is MG! Are you out of your mind?”  
Well, Speirs should have expected that. Now his heroic deed in D-Day was spreading all over the battalion, there was no chance that Roe would hear nothing about it.  
“We were ordered to take that gun.” Speirs replied calmly and rationally, “We only had handful men to face an entire company of Krauts. If I showed any sign of fear, there would be more casualties.”  
“I know it’s the order, but…” Roe stopped halfway. The anger was overwhelmed by something else. Speirs studied his face in the dark, and suddenly he recognized that expression. Roe would look at him like that every time he wounded, with deep worry and caring.  
“You are angry because you worried about me.”  
Roe rolled his eyes and denied immediately, “I just don’t want to hear your call.”  
Speirs smiled a contented smile, and promised, “I know. I promise you never will.”

Minutes later, Sergeant Johnny Martin awakened by the strange speech given by Speirs to encourage Blithe. The legendary platoon leader of Dog company seemed to be in an unreasonably good mood, after finishing the speech he even smiled at them before walking back. Martin patted Blithe’s shoulder and asked astonishingly, “Am I still in dream or what, did I saw Speirs smiling at you?”

In June 25th they moved off line and went back to England. Doc Roe was in the hospital, visiting his fellows who got their glorious wounds in Normandy. As most wounded of Easy were so restless in the hospital, his visiting day turned out to be a day of persuasion. He had to persuade them to stay a little longer, in order not to worsen the wound.   
Walter ‘Smokey’ Gordon, who was awarded 3 purple hearts for his wounds, kept gazing at him in a weird way. Clearly he had something to say to him, therefore Roe walked to him and asked, “What’s it, Gordon?”  
Gordon hesitated for a long time, as if he was having trouble picking the right words, then he asked, slowly and cautiously, “Doc, did you irritate lieutenant Speirs of Dog company recently?”  
Roe looked at him and frowned, as if he had to think hard to figure out whom Gordon was talking about. “Not as far as I can remember, why?”  
“It seemed that he gave D company a strange order, about you.”  
The strange order turned out to be that, if Speirs was wounded, made sure doc Roe of Easy company was not around before calling him a medic.  
“If you haven’t irritated him, then you must have done something that really scared the tough killer.” Said Gordon in excitement, “Come on, tell us about that, doc…”  
There came no reply. Their doc rushed out of the hospital with angry look on his face. The wounded men looked at each other in confusion and surprise, wondering what their doc was angry at.  
“Did I hear doc Roe cursing and swearing just now?” Murmured Robert ‘Popeye’ Wynn in disbelief, “It must be the side effect of painkiller.”

Later that day, Roe visited the apartment of Dog company’s officers, claiming that he needed to talk to lieutenant Speirs about some serious issue. They spent some time discussing seriously about Speirs’ dangerous tendency of concealing his wounds and illnesses. Nobody knew exactly what kind of agreement they had reached, but lieutenant Speirs, who got 4 wounds in Normandy and kept refusing to go to hospital, finally visited company aid station and stayed there until he recovered completely.


End file.
